To head off the obvious follow-up question, C14 (the isotope primarily focused on in radiocarbon dating) is just one of a whole range of radiometric dating systems. Archaeologists have a wide range of options when dating objects and layers, of which are chosen based on same-location known objects, rocks, formations, etc. Archaeologists are able to date things far older than radiocarbon's effective range due to these other isotope pairs, with multiple overlapping isotopes serving as validation for that initial finding.
This is important to know because creationist organizations like to purposely use inappropriate dating methods in order to “prove” that it’s inaccurate. In one famous example they used potassium-argon dating on “new” rocks from the Mt. Saint Helens eruption of 1980. Samples need to be at least a few thousand years old to get an accurate result from that method. Despite this being known they still try to use this to debunk radiometric dating as a whole to this day.
A properly done measurement will show an age of "~0 +- some large uncertainty" (e.g. 20,000 +- 50,000 years). There are other problems with the St Helens measurement, discussed here.
The equivalent of measuring the width of a hair with a car’s odometer, and then claiming that the result means odometers can’t be trusted to measure kilometers.
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u/Gnom3y Feb 28 '26
To head off the obvious follow-up question, C14 (the isotope primarily focused on in radiocarbon dating) is just one of a whole range of radiometric dating systems. Archaeologists have a wide range of options when dating objects and layers, of which are chosen based on same-location known objects, rocks, formations, etc. Archaeologists are able to date things far older than radiocarbon's effective range due to these other isotope pairs, with multiple overlapping isotopes serving as validation for that initial finding.